Iraqi infatuation: Breaking up is hard to do

Well, the boys have pulled out. American troops are leaving Iraq after a long and tenuous relationship of seven and a half years. But it appears it will be a messy break up,  with 50,000 non-combat troops remaining to handle transition and security. If this whole, “let’s be friends” thing doesn’t end up working out, Americans may want their mix tape back.

After almost eight years of fighting a war not fully understood by most Americans, or most Millennials, myself included, and now with this asinine conflict on our home turf regarding a mosque near ground zero, it seems we may not have learned our lesson after all.

I’m not sure that the time spent in Iraq accomplished much of anything. If we are still seeing hate crimes directed towards Muslims and a reversion to the racism brought on by 9/11, then what exactly have we been “fighting” for? I thought it was about peace and the end of the subjection of Iraqi people. You would also hope Iraq would be further along in its progression towards democracy, but with troops staying behind, it looks like there is some unrequited emotions.

Iraq might be in the same economic position as it was when we got there, and not ready to sustain itself, but I don’t think more American involvement is the answer. With increasingly complicated domestic issues to resolve, our government’s attention should focus on home, rather than on aiding an occupied nation in setting up a democratic system.

It is hard to imagine Iraqi citizens particularly enjoyed having another country’s military running amok and poking their noses around for the past seven and a half years. But there are those in Iraq who would feel safer knowing a third party is around to keep militants at bay. Talk about unresolved issues. Our seven-year fling with imperialism has become more of a lifelong commitment than we bargained for.

So somebody is going to have to be there to oversee this transition. Similar to edging withdrawal symptoms from toxic substances, this eight-year, toxic relationship is bound to leave some instability and confusion in its wake. Not to mention fear, anxiety, sadness and worry; it wouldn’t be the end of a chapter if none of those things existed. So what exactly did America accomplish? According to the independent news organization, Stripes.com,

• “The U.S. declared it was invading Iraq in March 2003 to stop the spread of Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction — and instead the war fueled the proliferation of a frustrating and deadly class of terrorist weapons, the dreaded ‘improvised explosive devices,’ or IEDs.
• The Bush administration argued that the war was necessary to interdict Saddam’s support of al-Qaida — yet today, the war has become a rallying cry for the terrorist group from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Somalia and Yemen.
• Iraq has held democratic elections — but the nation’s fractious political parties have been fighting to form a new government for five months.”

By 2011, it will all be over. Down to the last drop, all the boxes packed, all the tearful goodbyes said. The rings thrown down the drain, the CDs claimed and the last jacket handed off. Just like that, all that will be left is the wreckage of an attempt at a good thing, with no one knowing if it was good, bad, worth it or not.

If I had things my way, BK style, I would prefer more citizen activism in countries suffering at the hands of genocide, poverty and oppression, not military interference and destruction in the name of foreign imports and government propaganda. But. We aren’t living in a utopia. We are living in democratic America. Do I think the Iraq war accomplished what it was intended for? No. Do I think the war fulfilled what we were told it was intended for? Not at all. Will there be more just like it? Absolutely. Just follow the cash crop, like a Beverly Hills gold-digger.

So you tell me. Were these last seven and a half years worth it? Or was it just one giant fuck-up in the name of patriotism? There might be more devastating things to come. What will the fallout be? And for godssake has anyone found the weapons of mass destruction? Maybe they got lost in the shuffling of belongings, or left in the back of the moving van. We may never know.

Photo by jdubfudge